Militants revive cycle of violence / Hopes of eased tensions dashed as over 200 die since Thursday or Over 180 Iraqis, 28 Americans killed in matter of days or More than 200 have been killed in attacks since late last week

Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Photo: ALI ABU SHISH

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An Iraqi policeman inspects arm caches found at a farm, 15km (9 miles) northeast of Iraq's Najaf city, January 7, 2006. Several insurgents were arrested at the farm, police said. REUTERS/Ali Abu Shish Ran on: 01-10-2006
A police officer inspects arm caches found at a farm northeast of Najaf, Iraq. Police said they arrested several insurgents at the farm. Ran on: 01-10-2006
A police officer inspects an arms cache found at a farm northeast of Najaf, Iraq. Police said they arrested several insurgents at the farm. less

Militants revive cycle of violence / Hopes of eased tensions dashed as over 200 die since Thursday or Over 180 Iraqis, 28 Americans killed in matter of days or More than 200 have been killed in attacks since late last week

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Despite claims of improved security, talk of drawing down U.S. forces and hopes that last month's historic elections in the country would help to defuse the insurgency, Iraq once more is experiencing a paroxysm of violence that is claiming hundreds of Iraqi and U.S. lives.

The onslaught of suicide bombs, gunfights and roadside bombs has killed more than 180 Iraqis and at least 28 U.S. troops and civilians since Thursday alone.

The latest incident occurred Monday when a deadly double suicide bombing at a police celebration in Baghdad killed at least 29 people and injured 18 more.

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Two men reportedly disguised as senior Iraqi police officers and holding security passes detonated their explosive vests at a Police Day parade inside the Interior Ministry compound in Baghdad. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Interior Minister Bayan Baqir Jabr and Defense Minister Sadoon al-Dulaimi were among the hundreds of people at the festivities. They were not harmed.

An Internet site known for publishing statements from the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, carried a claim of responsibility for the suicide attack, saying it was in revenge for the torture of Sunni Arab prisoners at two detention facilities run by the Shiite-led Interior Ministry.

Analysts see the upsurge in violence, in part, as aimed at derailing the political process as political leaders try to put together Iraq's first full-term, four-year government. They also say it is the latest crest in an up-and-down cycle characteristic of an insurgency that has engulfed the country since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. In most insurgencies, "we see peaks and valleys in the continuous graph of violence that are often inexplicable," said Wayne White, former head of the Iraq team in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

The wave of violence comes after a relative lull that followed the Dec. 15 national elections. U.S. and Iraqi forces carried out major counterinsurgency operations before the elections, and the spike in attacks may be a sign that the insurgency has recuperated from the crackdown, said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute in Washington, which tracks electronic communications of Islamic insurgent and terrorist groups.

"Maybe it took them a while to regroup again after those operations," Katz said. "I don't see any other political reason for this."

White says the insurgents may also be trying to debunk recent statements by Iraqi and U.S. officials that security and the preparedness of Iraqi forces have improved enough to allow the United States to cut its combat brigades from 17 in 2005 to 15 later this year.

"They are responding to the statements which they view as demeaning during the election campaigns that coalition forces and security forces have driven violence down," White said.

White also says the insurgency may be flexing "their muscle as a protest" to intimidate Sunni Arabs involved in the political process.

"Insurgency is a multiheaded animal: in some cases it's tribal, in some cases it's former Baathists, in some cases it's Islamic fundamentalists," White said. "Insurgency is present in every locale, and ... they retaliate, they go after somebody who does something like taking a job with the government or collaborating."

Iraq's minority Sunnis, who boycotted the January 2005 election to form a temporary parliament and are the backbone of the insurgency, turned out by the millions during the Dec. 15 parliamentary election. U.S. officials say convincing the Sunnis that they have adequate representation in the new government is the best hope to stabilize the shaky security and political situation and help deflate the insurgency.

Election officials are still calculating the votes, and it remains unclear how many representatives Sunni candidates will have in the 275-seat legislative assembly. But Iraq's leading political groups are already negotiating a coalition government that includes Shiites, Sunnis and ethnic Kurds.

To defuse the insurgency, American officials have begun talks with Iraqi insurgent leaders, taking advantage of a rift between local groups, whose main goal is to expel U.S. forces, and the more radical, Islamic fundamentalist groups like al Qaeda in Iraq that want an Islamic state, the New York Times reported last week.

"I think it is very good that we are talking with Sunni Arab leaders," said Michael O'Hanlon, who heads the Iraq Index project that monitors the reconstruction and insurgency in Iraq at the Brookings Institution. "But, of course, it's even more important that Shia and Kurds do so, and that issues such as oil revenue-sharing and de-Baathification procedures get handled in a way that is consistent with the core interests of most Sunni Arabs." So far at least, such talks have done little to reduce the insurgency.

At the same time, tension between Sunni Arabs and the ruling Shiites remains high. The majority Shiites, who are in power for the first time in a millennia since the United States overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003, have accused Sunni leaders of encouraging violence. Many Sunnis are angry at being barred from business and government jobs for being members of Hussein's Baath Party and say Shiite-controlled security forces have been carrying out a campaign of torture and assassinations against them.

Sunnis also are unhappy about the new Constitution, which was written last year by Shiite and Kurdish legislators. Sunnis say the document gives too much power to the predominantly Shiite region in the south and the predominantly Kurdish region in the north. Those two regions control virtually all of the nation's oil wealth, making Sunni concerns even greater.